It’s been raining everyday in the afternoon and sometimes at night.  This is bringing out a lot of lemon yellow butterflies.  They are very pretty.  How come lemon yellow butterflies are nice to see and termites, cockroaches, spiders or other bugs are not?  Why is one bug a positive thing and another is not?  Opposites – duality – not truth.  Now every time I see the butterflies, I question this belief system.  The long winged bugs in my house the other night were termites and are normal.  Noi told me she had to turn off all her lights and use only a flashlight.

Pat’s turned kind of cranky lately.  She’s been very unfriendly.  I assume I did something to upset her.  As much as people talk about how nice the Thai people are, the issue I have with that is that if something is wrong, they won’t tell you.  They will just smile and pretend to be nice.  I know a lot of people find this a pleasant thing, but I don’t.  So, I probably will never know what upset her.

Today someone brought me bananas and I have no idea who.  One was another double banana – two bananas in one peel.  This makes me happy.  Noi brought me a Chinese dumpling thing and a can of mystery milk.  I drank the milk and still don’t know what flavor it was.  The can says white malt, but it didn’t taste like malt.  It has a bear and wheat on it.  Maybe it was wheat flavored or bear flavored.

Today I saw two girls walking into the language building with their hands tied together.  At first I thought it was some friendship thing.  Then I saw them sitting on the floor talking to Pat and they were both almost in tears and appeared very shameful as if they being tied together was some price they paid for doing something wrong.  I assume they spent the whole lunch period tied together and were telling Pat what they learned so they could get untied.  They were sitting on the floor because Pat was sitting.  Any time a student passes in front of a teacher, they bow their head lower so if they want to talk to the teacher and the teacher is sitting, they have to sit on the floor so they will be lower.  I find this custom to be both respectful and annoying.  I still can’t get use to students doing this to me.  Or when they wai to me I’m not supposed to wai back, but I feel that I have just as much respect for them and I want to wai back.  I usually just nod my head back.  I’ve also seen some other punishment that I’ve found either disturbing, or at least strange.  If a boy’s hair is too long, a teacher will take scissors to it and cut huge patches out in front of all the other students.  Then they walk around with some short hair, some shorter and patches missing altogether.  None of them actually have long hair to begin with.  Then they have to go home and shave it to get it back to all one length.  I’ve seen students hit with a cane.  I’ve seen them doing pushups – and they were the worst form I’ve ever seen.  I saw one student get a sign stapled to his shirt and he had to go through lunch with it on.  I asked Pat what it was for and she said he had tried to touch a girl’s boobs so they put the sign on him.

Near the end of the school day, Tip texted me to tell me she was getting ready to go to yoga.  What?  There’s a yoga class here?  How come I don’t know about this?  Is there a gym no one’s told me about?  No.  I got excited over nothing.  Tip is friends with the Chinese Medicine doctor and her assistant at the hospital.  Ton is the assistant and has been teaching Tip yoga.  Jeab and Ton are in my class with the monk so I went after school to join Tip for yoga.  They started at 4:00 and I was late since I’m in school until 4:00 so I only had 20 minutes of yoga. It was just Ton, Tip and I.  It kind of resembled yoga as I know it.  The only reason I broke a sweat is because there is no air con in that part of the hospital.  Still, better than no exercise which has been my exercise plan lately.

Tip took me to a shop with a really nice lady that makes salads, burgers and coffee.  She was really nice and gave me her number so I can call ahead next time I want a salad.  She makes her own dressings too.  This means I can get a salad without that mayonnaise like dressing that is all I can find elsewhere!  Score.  We went to the market.  Tip has a little golf cart like thing that we drove from her house to the other side of the hospital where the market it is.  It was like speed walking through the market.  She was on a mission and didn’t want to do much else.  I was ok with this as I was getting tired and wanted to go home.